"Honestly the Protectorate is welcome to most of my actual usefulness, because most of my actual usefulness can be offloaded entirely onto a heavily parallelized bot. It could probably run a fight as well as I could now while I was programming in some expensive penthouse office. I do still want to maintain Dad's suit, and Rewind's since she'll have one soon. I just don't want to account for my time or my money to them."

"Maybe they'll be reasonable around you due to just how useful you are. They do keep pretty good relations with New Wave and the Guild and such."

"Yeah, that's the best case."

"Also who knows what other useful things you'll invent in the next year."

"Any suggestions?"

"Well, I had one but you did say Armsmaster was likely to disapprove..."

Snort. "I don't think the Protectorate is going to lease an automatic edging machine or whatever else I'd wind up with if I stared at an electronic sex toy long enough, Sadde."

He laughs. "Well, I guess that can wait until you're independent."

"I might be able to do it on a shoestring budget, I made my first Tinker thing out of a cellphone and random things I found on the ground, but it'd involve cutting corners, so I don't know that you want to put the result near any form of genital."

"After you're rich, then. I'm sure we can keep coming up with more things to do that don't involve electronics."

"We're very creative people."

He laughs again. "That we are. Best girlfriend," he says, and kisses her.

Eeee.

Not getting too carried away, though, because the door's open.

Of course not.

"Which of your patents does the PRT have?"

"I've held onto every line of my software. They've got some bot hardware, mostly earlier versions, and most of the suit hardware."

"I wonder if they'll do anything about that when you tell them you're leaving."

Shrug. "If they do, I redesign all the hardware and get you to conjure me tools until I have investors."

"That's fair, I guess. What about the software, though? Could they say it should be theirs too since it's needed to operate the bots or something? I mean, it's tinker software so I'm pretty sure you're the only person on Earth who can deal with it but."

"They don't need that exact software to operate the pieces of hardware they have the rights to. Armsmaster could write alternative programs for it. They only need my software if they want it operating autonomously and they only want it operating autonomously if I don't currently hate them."

"I'm not sure they'll take very kindly to that argument."

"Yeah, I'm hoping to avoid it."

"Seems sensible overall."

"Yeah. I've been very careful with my software legal rights even though I could have gotten more budget when I was starting out if I'd sold. It might wake up."